The Indianist Movement is a title many music historians use to define the surge of compositions related to or based on the music of Native Americans that took place from around 1890 to 1920. Hundreds of compositions written during this time incorporated various aspects of Indian folklore and music into Western art music. This movement resulted from many factors in our nation’s political and social history as well as a quest for a compositional voice that was uniquely American. At the same time, a wave of ethnologists began researching and studying Native Americans in an effort to document their culture. In music, the character piece was a very successful genre for composers to express themselves. It became a natural genre for composers of the Indianist Movement to use as an outlet for portraying musical themes and folklore of Native American tribes. Although there were some common procedures in incorporating Indian themes, many composers had different philosophies about how to create their Indian character pieces. Eventually the enthusiasm for using Native American material died out and left a large body of piano literature collecting dust, out of print, and virtually unrecognized.